''Adding climate change to school curriculums. Geoengineering. Thorium fuel reactors. A Blue New Deal. The Syrian war was a climate war. Climate distress included in asylum petitions. Food deserts. Climate denial is a literal sin. “Democracy” is a verb.''

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''For the first time in the history of the country, these topics and others like them were discussed in detail by presidential candidates on live television, and all with the words “Climate Crisis” in huge letters above them on the stage and flashed in chyrons across the screen. Underscoring the gravity of the topic were constant updates on the ruinous progress of Hurricane Dorian, which reclaimed Category 3 status as it clawed its way toward landfall once again...''

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''Ten candidates were given 40 clean minutes each to answer pointed, detailed, climate-specific questions over the course of seven hours.''

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''Virtually every candidate described climate change as an “existential crisis” that needs to be addressed immediately.''

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''“We are going to have to change the nature of many of the things we are doing right now... There will be a transition, and there will be some pain. We are going to have to ask people to make those changes now, even though they may be uncomfortable, for the sake of future generations.” -- Bernie Sanders''

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''"The fossil fuel industry... They want to be able to stir up a lot of controversy around your light bulbs, around your straws, and around your cheeseburgers. When 70 percent of the pollution, of the carbon that we’re throwing into the air, [https://www.nytimes.com/live/2019/democrats-climate-town-hall/elizabeth-warren-climate-change comes from three industries...] the building industry, the electric power industry and the oil industry."'''

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''"And why don’t we focus there? It's corruption! It's these giant corruptions that keep hiring the PR firms so we don’t look at who’s still making the big bucks off polluting our earth. And the time for that is past. We have a chance, a chance left in 2020 to turn this around. But we are running out of time on this one." -- Elizabeth Warren''

''The climate crisis is not only the single greatest challenge facing our country; it is also our single greatest opportunity to build a more just and equitable future, but we must act immediately.''

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''Climate change is a global emergency. The Amazon rainforest is burning, Greenland’s ice shelf is melting, and the Arctic is on fire. People across the country and the world are already experiencing the deadly consequences of our climate crisis, as extreme weather events like heat waves, wildfires, droughts, floods, and hurricanes upend entire communities, ecosystems, economies, and ways of life, as well as endanger millions of lives. Communities of color, working class people, and the global poor have borne and will bear this burden disproportionately.''

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''The scientific community is telling us in no uncertain terms that we have less than 11 years left to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and sustainable energy, if we are going to leave this planet healthy and habitable for ourselves, our children, grandchildren, and future generations. As rising temperatures and extreme weather create health emergencies, drive land loss and displacement, destroy jobs, and threaten livelihoods, we must guarantee health care, housing, and a good-paying job to every American, especially to those who have been historically excluded from economic prosperity.''

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''The scope of the challenge ahead of us shares similarities with the crisis faced by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1940s. Battling a world war on two fronts—both in the East and the West—the United States came together, and within three short years restructured the entire economy in order to win the war and defeat fascism. As president, Bernie Sanders will boldly embrace the moral imperative of addressing the climate crisis and act immediately to mobilize millions of people across the country in support of the Green New Deal.''

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/us/politics/jay-inslee.html '' Now, Evergreen State eco-candidate for president Inslee is trending: How about Inslee for Secretary of the Interior?'']

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'''''Progressive Activists Have Pushed Democrats to the Left on Climate Issues'''''

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''Now What, Democratic National Committee?

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''What once seemed like progressive moonshots on climate have now become a critical litmus test for moderates and liberal presidential candidates. The activists have helped shift the Democratic center of gravity further to the left on climate. And now they face the question that often comes to groups that rise swiftly in influence: What next?''

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''“We don’t trust that a Democratic Party that has reneged on their responsibility, a complete dereliction of duty for the last 40 years, will actually rise to the challenge at this moment,” said Varshini Prakash, the 25-year-old executive director of the Sunrise Movement...''

''“I’m grateful to citizens across America who are speaking loud and clear on climate change. I’m appreciative of my colleagues on the Energy and Commerce Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee and my fellow members of the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis for their work on this legislation. This is exactly the sort of collaboration we need to address the climate crisis. And I’m thankful for the Republican members who embraced bipartisanship today and voted in favor of this bill. America’s leadership, the health of our families and the health of our planet should not be partisan issues."''

''“I’m grateful to citizens across America who are speaking loud and clear on climate change. I’m appreciative of my colleagues on the Energy and Commerce Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee and my fellow members of the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis for their work on this legislation. This is exactly the sort of collaboration we need to address the climate crisis. And I’m thankful for the Republican members who embraced bipartisanship today and voted in favor of this bill. America’s leadership, the health of our families and the health of our planet should not be partisan issues."''

Adding climate change to school curriculums. Geoengineering. Thorium fuel reactors. A Blue New Deal. The Syrian war was a climate war. Climate distress included in asylum petitions. Food deserts. Climate denial is a literal sin. “Democracy” is a verb.

For the first time in the history of the country, these topics and others like them were discussed in detail by presidential candidates on live television, and all with the words “Climate Crisis” in huge letters above them on the stage and flashed in chyrons across the screen. Underscoring the gravity of the topic were constant updates on the ruinous progress of Hurricane Dorian, which reclaimed Category 3 status as it clawed its way toward landfall once again...

Ten candidates were given 40 clean minutes each to answer pointed, detailed, climate-specific questions over the course of seven hours.

Virtually every candidate described climate change as an “existential crisis” that needs to be addressed immediately.

○

“We are going to have to change the nature of many of the things we are doing right now... There will be a transition, and there will be some pain. We are going to have to ask people to make those changes now, even though they may be uncomfortable, for the sake of future generations.” -- Bernie Sanders

○

"The fossil fuel industry... They want to be able to stir up a lot of controversy around your light bulbs, around your straws, and around your cheeseburgers. When 70 percent of the pollution, of the carbon that we’re throwing into the air, comes from three industries... the building industry, the electric power industry and the oil industry."'

"And why don’t we focus there? It's corruption! It's these giant corruptions that keep hiring the PR firms so we don’t look at who’s still making the big bucks off polluting our earth. And the time for that is past. We have a chance, a chance left in 2020 to turn this around. But we are running out of time on this one." -- Elizabeth Warren

The climate crisis is not only the single greatest challenge facing our country; it is also our single greatest opportunity to build a more just and equitable future, but we must act immediately.

Climate change is a global emergency. The Amazon rainforest is burning, Greenland’s ice shelf is melting, and the Arctic is on fire. People across the country and the world are already experiencing the deadly consequences of our climate crisis, as extreme weather events like heat waves, wildfires, droughts, floods, and hurricanes upend entire communities, ecosystems, economies, and ways of life, as well as endanger millions of lives. Communities of color, working class people, and the global poor have borne and will bear this burden disproportionately.

The scientific community is telling us in no uncertain terms that we have less than 11 years left to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and sustainable energy, if we are going to leave this planet healthy and habitable for ourselves, our children, grandchildren, and future generations. As rising temperatures and extreme weather create health emergencies, drive land loss and displacement, destroy jobs, and threaten livelihoods, we must guarantee health care, housing, and a good-paying job to every American, especially to those who have been historically excluded from economic prosperity.

The scope of the challenge ahead of us shares similarities with the crisis faced by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1940s. Battling a world war on two fronts—both in the East and the West—the United States came together, and within three short years restructured the entire economy in order to win the war and defeat fascism. As president, Bernie Sanders will boldly embrace the moral imperative of addressing the climate crisis and act immediately to mobilize millions of people across the country in support of the Green New Deal.

Progressive Activists Have Pushed Democrats to the Left on Climate Issues

Now What, Democratic National Committee?

What once seemed like progressive moonshots on climate have now become a critical litmus test for moderates and liberal presidential candidates. The activists have helped shift the Democratic center of gravity further to the left on climate. And now they face the question that often comes to groups that rise swiftly in influence: What next?

“We don’t trust that a Democratic Party that has reneged on their responsibility, a complete dereliction of duty for the last 40 years, will actually rise to the challenge at this moment,” said Varshini Prakash, the 25-year-old executive director of the Sunrise Movement...

As Mr. Biden runs for president, he has laid out an ambitious climate plan of his own that goes well beyond what Mr. Obama achieved, proposing $1.7 trillion in spending and a tax or fee on planet-warming pollution with the aim of eliminating the nation’s net carbon emissions by 2050.

The sweeping proposal from the typically moderate Mr. Biden demonstrates just how far the Democratic field has moved on climate change....

Mr. Biden’s proposals came just hours before a rival candidate, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, released her own climate proposal as part of a $2 trillion green manufacturing plan. Her plan would create a National Institutes of Clean Energy and push federal spending toward American-made renewable energy technology.

The Green Apollo Program would commit "$400 billion in funding over the next 10 years for clean energy research and development — more than 10 times what we invested in the last 10 years."

The Green Industrial Mobilization would involve "a $1.5 trillion federal procurement commitment over the next 10 years to purchase American-made clean, renewable, and emission-free energy products for federal, state, and local use, and for export."

The Green Marshall Plan would include the creation of "a new federal office dedicated to selling American-made clean, renewable, and emission-free energy technology abroad and a $100 billion commitment to assisting countries to purchase and deploy this technology."

"The climate crisis demands immediate and bold action," Warren wrote, reiterating her support for a fair and just transition that's called for in the Green New Deal.

Investments in new energy-efficient schools, improvements in drinking water and reducing emissions at airports, ports and waterways

The infrastructure plan would aim to “create standards for resilience that will ensure infrastructure money is spent on assets that will both withstand and keep communities safe from the impacts of climate change, including by improving and protecting mass evacuation routes.”

“An infrastructure package can serve as a critical down payment on the action that we need to take to combat the climate crisis. Any deal on an infrastructure package must include measures to promote our clean-energy economy and mitigate the dangers posed by climate change,” Markey announced on May 22. “Making a clean and climate-resilient infrastructure vision a reality will require re-envisioning existing infrastructure programs and re-evaluating how we invest in those programs.”

Markey is among Democrats in Congress advocating for infrastructure capable of handling the impact of recent storms and other weather events. He is the co-sponsor with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) of the Green New Deal, a manifesto proposing drastic reductions in traditional sources of energy across commercial transportation over the next decade.

“We must make the Republican denial face the reality of what the Trump administration is doing to our natural environment and our constitutional environment - and act with the boldest common denominator to repair the damage and build a better future,” Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from California wrote in an Earth Day letter.

The House climate bill, sponsored by Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., can now be considered by the Senate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., however, has promised “this futile gesture to handcuff the U.S. economy through the ill-fated Paris deal will go nowhere here in the Senate.”

Statement by U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, chair of the U.S. House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis

WASHINGTON (May 2, 2019) - The U.S. House today voted 231 to 190 for the Climate Action Now Act (H.R. 9), a bill that would prevent the Trump Administration from withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement.

Below is a statement from Rep. Kathy Castor, the bill’s sponsor and chair of the U.S. House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis:

“Democrats said we would honor our commitment to act on the climate crisis. Now we’re delivering. This is the first major piece of climate legislation to pass the House in 10 years and it won’t be the last.

“The Paris Climate Agreement carbon pollution reduction goals are vital to the growing clean energy economy and avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. Instead of cutting and running from this agreement as President Trump proposes, the House voted to honor our commitment. When America leads on cutting carbon pollution, the world follows, so this is a major signal to our allies that Americans overwhelmingly support this agreement. We deserve clean air, family-sustaining jobs in the growing clean energy industry, and policies that work for the people, not corporate polluters.

“I’m grateful to citizens across America who are speaking loud and clear on climate change. I’m appreciative of my colleagues on the Energy and Commerce Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee and my fellow members of the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis for their work on this legislation. This is exactly the sort of collaboration we need to address the climate crisis. And I’m thankful for the Republican members who embraced bipartisanship today and voted in favor of this bill. America’s leadership, the health of our families and the health of our planet should not be partisan issues."

The Republicans on the committee appeared to largely view climate change not as a crisis but as a threat to fossil fuel production and deregulation...

With Republican members (Reps. Kelly Armstrong, Garret Graves, Carol Miller, Gary Palmer...) that seem invested in bad faith arguments and uninterested in solutions that upset the status quo, there are open questions about what this committee can accomplish.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday he believes in human-caused climate change but that the progressive Green New Deal wasn't the way to tackle the problem...

Democrats propose a resolution to create a Senate panel focused on climate change, similar to the committee started by House Democrats earlier this year.

Schumer adds that Democrats are asking McConnell to go agree to take a vote to form the select committee. "Climate change is serious, and it's worthy of bipartisan investigation and action. Why not create this committee?"

Energy 202: Lawmakers and the Green New Deal. A running theme among alternative proposals is an emphasis on innovation...

“We can't try and fail at this effort,” NY Congressman Paul Tonko said in an interview. “We have to get this right.”

The Green New Deal resolution, which calls for the United States to dramatically reducing its greenhouse-gas emissions, has energized progressives in ways few if any climate proposals have in the past.

Committee chair Paul Tonko’s opinion matters because the six-term congressman, unlike freshman Ocasio-Cortez, is the head of a key climate change subcommittee in the House through which much climate-related legislation will flow.

But the chairman of the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on climate change and the environment says he is not looking to pick a fight. Though Tonko has not officially sponsored Ocasio-Cortez’s resolution, he says his plan “complements the Green New Deal.”

Tonko envisions “a two-track approach” to climate legislation.

First, he wants House Democrats to work with Republicans to build a “consensus” and pass legislation that has a chance of being taken up by the GOP-led Senate. Areas of potential compromise include, according to Tonko, improving the energy efficiency of buildings and building out the electric grid to better support wind turbines and solar arrays...

Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee, including ranking Republican Greg Walden (Ore.), have supported similar efforts when they were in the majority in the House — and are signaling they want to again this term. “Republicans in Congress have pursued these common-sense initiatives to protect our environment and our economy, and we will work with Democrats that want to find practical and achievable solutions,” an aide to Republicans on the committee said.

The second part of Tonko's two-track approach — which he acknowledges may need to wait until Democrats can win the Senate, White House or both — involves passing more comprehensive legislation, such as placing a price on emitting carbon into the atmosphere.

e360 / Elizabeth Kolbert: So the Green New Deal is obviously a resolution and not a piece of legislation. But is anyone working on a legislative package?

Markey: Yes, that’s what we’re saying — that in each area now, we are calling on members of the House and Senate to introduce their bill. So for example, there is a tax-extender bill, which will potentially be up for debate this year that will include extenders for wind tax breaks, solar tax breaks, electric vehicle tax breaks, tax breaks for storage technologies. And that’s the forum to have that debate.

Each committee in the House and Senate, each member now has an ability to introduce legislation that can deal with the issue. So we’re having hearings.

And what people forget is that Citizens United was decided [by the U.S. Supreme Court] in January of 2010. And that’s what led to a flood of money coming into the system in 2010, and that dropped the overall public acceptance that climate change is real by 20 points. So we’re now back up to 72, 73 percent [who accept the reality of climate change]. And we have a Green New Deal movement that’s been born.

If Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) calls a vote on the "Green New Deal," it looks likely that many — or even all — Senate Democrats would vote "present" to avoid a public intraparty fight, said activists, lawmakers and congressional aides.

“My job and the (the new select) committee’s job is to take the general concepts (of the Green New Deal) and turn them into a real policy framework and legislative language and eventually law,” she said.

(House Speaker) Pelosi agreed, saying in a statement that the climate panel will “spearhead Democrats work to develop innovative, effective solutions to prevent and reverse the climate crisis.”

Pelosi invited Ocasio-Cortez... to join the climate panel, but she declined, saying she wants to focus on the Green New Deal and other committee assignments.

In an interview Ocasio-Cortez explained how she sees a multi-faceted process, with committees cooperating to investigate, hold hearings, draft policy and propose legislation... “I serve on the Environmental Subcommittee on Oversight, I’m on four subcommittees. And additionally, the select committee is an investigatory body. They’re tackling the investigative piece and we’re tackling the legislative piece”

“Climate change and our environmental challenges are the biggest existential threats to our way of life. We must be as ambitious and innovative in our solutions as possible.”

“Solutions that we have considered big and bold are nowhere near the scale of the actual problem that climate change presents to us,” Ocasio-Cortez said as the Green New Deal was unveiled. The Green New Deal “could be part of a larger solution.”

"Green New Deal goals" ... a 10-year national mobilization --

• Building resiliency against climate change-related disasters, such as extreme weather, including by leveraging funding and providing instruments for community-defined projects and strategies;

• Upgrading existing buildings in U.S. to become more energy efficient;

• Cooperating with farmers “to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions… as much as is technologically feasible” as well as working with family farms to promote “universal access to healthy food;”

The Green New Deal resolution sums up with a call for the United States to promote "the international exchange of technology, expertise, products, funding and services with the aim to making the United States the international leader on climate action and to help other countries achieve a Green New Deal."

“The Trump administration has been silencing science for 2 years now and pretending that climate change doesn’t exist, despite the excellent work of [its] own scientists. Trump’s SOTU was more of the same,” Joel Clement, senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), new chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, tweeted, “Trump and his cronies have spent the last 2 years leaving our environmental future in the hands of the fossil fuel industry, denying #ClimateChange, and imperiling the public health of our communities.” That committee holds a hearing today on climate change impacts and the need for action.

Also, Rep. Frank Pallone Jr.‏ (D-N.J.), new chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, tweeted, “We heard a lot of talk from @realDonaldTrump tonight on manufactured crises, but we heard nothing on one of the most important challenges of our time: #ClimateChange.” The committee holds a hearing today on addressing the environmental and economic effects of climate change.

John Nichols writes of the State of the Union speech, Roosevelt's New Deal and our era's Green New Deal

Ocasio-Cortez, who is set to unveil the plan with Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey, told her fellow representatives in a letter that the Green New Deal calls for a "national, social, industrial and economic mobilization at a scale not seen since World War II."

"Next week, we plan to release a resolution that outlines the scope and scale of the Green New Deal,” Ocasio-Cortez said in the letter, adding that the country's near-total economic transformation should take approximately ten years.

The Green New Deal proposal would lead to national net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, according to Ocasio-Cortez's letter, “through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers,” while also generating millions of “good, high-wage jobs." Details of the letter were first published by Bloomberg.

How to move toward solutions grounded in a fuller understanding of economic development

Q: A Green New Deal has been proposed by many over the years, including yourself, as the only viable way to tackle effectively climate change. How would the green growth path lead to climate stabilization?

RP: The core feature of the Green New Deal needs to be a worldwide program to invest between 2 percent and 2.5 percent of global GDP every year to raise energy efficiency standards and expand clean renewable energy supplies. Through this investment program, it becomes realistic to drive down global CO2 emissions to zero by 2050, while also supporting rising mass living standards and expanding job opportunities. It is critical to recognize that, within this framework, a higher economic growth rate will also accelerate the rate at which clean energy supplants fossil fuels, since higher levels of GDP will correspondingly mean a higher level of investment being channeled into clean energy projects. In 2016, global clean energy investment was about $300 billion, or 0.4 percent of global GDP. Thus, the increase in investments will need to be in the range of 2 percent of global GDP — about $1.6 trillion at the current global GDP of $80 trillion, then rising in step with global growth thereafter — to reach zero CO2 emissions by 2050.

Investments aimed at raising energy efficiency standards and expanding the supply of clean renewable energy will also generate tens of millions of new jobs in all regions of the world. This is because building a green economy entails more labor-intensive activities — i.e. proportionally more money channeled into employing people for a given amount of total spending on any given project — than maintaining the world’s current fossil-fuel-based energy infrastructure....

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s 2019 Green New Deal calls for doubling distributed solar by 2025 and nearly quadrupling offshore wind by 2035.

The plan, outlined in Cuomo's 2019 "Justice Agenda", calls for a "globally unprecedented" ramp-up in renewable energy deployments as New York seeks to achieve 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2040, and ultimately to eliminate its entire carbon footprint.

“Amidst the Trump administration’s assault on the environment and in order to continue New York’s progress in the fight against climate change," the briefing states, "Governor Cuomo is announcing New York’s Green New Deal, a nation-leading clean energy and jobs agenda that will put the state on a path to carbon neutrality across all sectors of New York’s economy."

Former California Governor Jerry Brown signed a similar executive order last fall calling for the Golden State to achieve carbon neutrality economy-wide by 2045. California also passed legislation to achieve 100 percent clean electricity by the same year.

Rep. Kathy Castor is the Tampa Bay Florida Democrat that US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has chosen to chair the new Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.

"We are in a race against time," Castor, 52, told USA TODAY.

Castor spoke of her committee and the challenges it faces:

Q: Much of the information on climate change is out there. So what do you hope to accomplish with this new committee?

Castor: We're going to press for dramatic carbon pollution reduction. We want to win the clean energy future to defend the American way of life and avoid catastrophic and costly weather events that have dire impacts.

Q: What are some of the issues you want to pursue and how will you work with the standing congressional committee to achieve them?

Castor: Right off the bat, we will tackle fuel economy standards, make sure the Commerce Committee and the (Transportation and Infrastructure Committee) are focused on that. The Financial Services Committee has to do a flood insurance reform bill. We will be involved in that as well.

Q: You mentioned flood insurance. Representing a coastal district, you know what flooding and storms can do. Should we rebuild along the shore?

Castor: We shouldn't be insuring at taxpayer expense homes and businesses that have been destroyed repeatedly on the shore. Folks know full well that they're in hurricane's path or flood's path and they do that on their own. I'm concerned the (flood) maps are not up-to-date, that states and local communities are not acting fast enough to adopt policies to revise maps.

Q: Is there a concern you may getting in the way of standing committees who are already charged with environmental protection and climate change issues?

Castor: No, we're going to be complimentary. This is a collaborative effort. It's just being elevated because the threat to our way of life is at stake. It's all hands on deck... I do see our jurisdiction as being very broad. We're talking about the planet.

We don't have time to wait. Whatever we can press to accomplish as soon as possible, we will do that.

USA Today goes on to speak of immediate challenges of the new committee:

The committee already faces obstacles:

• Republicans, who have consistently downplayed the effects of climate change, say the panel is unfairly partisan (nine Democrats vs. six Republicans).

• Progressives, who support a comprehensive approach known as the Green New Deal, worry the committee won't be aggressive enough.

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, is interviewed on CBS - "60 Minutes".

The Green New Deal is top of mind.

“What is the problem with trying to push our technological capacities to the furthest extent possible?” Ocasio-Cortez asks Anderson Cooper.

She goes on to talk financing of the Green New Deal, even speaking of marginal taxing of incomes of over 10 million per year. “There’s an element where yeah, people are going to have to start paying their fair share in taxes.”

When told by Cooper that this is a "radical" idea... Ocasio-Cortez responds: “I think that it only has ever been radicals that have changed this country... if that’s what radical means, call me a radical.”

Calls for a Universal Basic Income have been increasing, most recently as part of the Green New Deal introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and supported in the last month by at least 40 members of Congress. A Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a monthly payment to all adults with no strings attached, similar to Social Security. Critics say the Green New Deal asks too much of the rich and upper-middle-class taxpayers who will have to pay for it, but taxing the rich is not what the resolution proposes. It says funding would primarily come from the federal government, “using a combination of the Federal Reserve, a new public bank or system of regional and specialized public banks,” and other vehicles.

The Federal Reserve alone could do the job. It could buy “Green” federal bonds with money created on its balance sheet, just as the Fed funded the purchase of $3.7 trillion in bonds in its “quantitative easing” program to save the banks. The Treasury could also do it....

In fact the consumer economy is chronically short of spendable income, due to the way money enters the consumer economy. We actually need regular injections of money to avoid a “balance sheet recession” and allow for growth, and a UBI is one way to do it.

The pros and cons of a UBI are hotly debated and have been discussed elsewhere. The point here is to show that it could actually be funded year after year without driving up taxes or prices...

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report last year stating that the world is quickly running out of time to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the level widely agreed to be the conservative, safety-first goal to prevent serious climate harms. To get there, the world would have to cut current emissions by 45 percent by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.

That sounds preposterously unlikely. Even 2 degrees of warming — which would be much worse than 1.5 degrees — would be nearly impossible to hit at this point (if we set aside hugely risky geoengineering schemes or untested carbon capture industries).... before we give in to despair, we should remember that the technology to address climate change is barreling along at high speed.

The largest source of U.S. carbon emissions is transportation and a Green New Deal for motor vehicles would be 'quite straightforward'...

San Francisco – Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi issued this statement announcing that Congresswoman Kathy Castor of Florida will chair the new Select Committee on the Climate Crisis:

“It is with great enthusiasm that I appoint Congresswoman Kathy Castor as the Chair of our new Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. She will bring great experience, energy and urgency to the existential threat of the climate crisis. This committee will be critical to the entire Congress’s mission to respond to the urgency of this threat, while creating the good-paying, green jobs of the future.

“Congresswoman Castor is a proven champion for public health and green infrastructure, who deeply understands the scope and seriousness of this threat. Her decades of experience in this fight, both in Florida and in the Congress, where she has been an outstanding leader on the Energy and Commerce Committee and on the House Democratic Environmental Message Team, will be vital.

“The American people have demanded action to combat the climate crisis, which threatens our public health, our economy, our national security and the whole of God’s creation. Together, we must protect public health by reducing air pollution, create jobs by making America preeminent in green technologies, defend our national security by preventing climate-driven instability and uphold our sacred moral responsibility to leave a healthy, sustainable future for generations to come.”

House Democrats are hammering out a final proposal for a select committee on climate change, but it's one that likely won't please progressive activists pushing the "Green New Deal."

Incoming Rules Chairman Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said yesterday he's working with leadership on a formal proposal for the committee, which will be included in the rules package, one of the first items the House will vote on in the new Congress. He added that he expects to have something together "in the next couple of days."

What the select committee actually looks like in the next Congress is being dictated largely by incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who was talking about bringing back the Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming weeks before Ocasio-Cortez took up the idea.

Then-Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) chaired that panel the last time Democrats controlled the House, and Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) is poised to lead it this time around (Greenwire, Dec. 20).

John Bowman, senior director of federal affairs for the Natural Resources Defense Council, cheered the news. "As a longtime environmental champion, few are better suited to help shine a bright light on the threats Americans face from the climate crisis and advance the solutions we urgently need," he said...

But progressives were especially miffed by news this week that the panel would likely not have subpoena power (Climatewire, Dec. 20).

"Our ultimate end goal isn't a Select Committee. Our goal is to treat Climate Change like the serious, existential threat it is by drafting an ambitious solution on the scale necessary — a Green New Deal — to get it done. A weak committee misses the point and endangers people," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Wednesday (Dec. 19).

At the same time, even some members who have backed Ocasio-Cortez's proposal don't see that distinction as a big deal. McGovern, for instance, voiced his support last week.

The important thing will be to get a select committee up and running within "existing structures" to help spotlight the issue, McGovern said. If the select panel is willing to work with committees of jurisdiction, its lack of subpoena power likely won't be an issue.

"The bottom line is that there are ways to deal with that," McGovern said. "They can work with committees of jurisdiction if they want to have somebody subpoenaed and join them in joint hearings."

Members of Congress are proposing a “Green New Deal” for the U.S. They say that a Green New Deal will produce jobs and strengthen America’s economy by accelerating the transition from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy. The Deal would generate 100% of the nation’s electricity from clean, renewable sources within the next 10 years; upgrade the nation’s energy grid, buildings, and transportation infrastructure; increase energy efficiency; invest in green technology research and development; and provide training for jobs in the new green economy.

While the Green New Deal has been a fixture of the post-election news cycle, and at least 40 members of Congress (to date) have endorsed the idea...

Yale Program to poll the level of national support for a Green New Deal, we surveyed a nationally-representative sample of registered voters in the United States.

As expected, support is strongest among Democrats (92%). But a large majority of Republicans (64%) – including conservative Republicans (57%) – also support the policy goals in our description of the Green New Deal.

Pelosi has promised to revive a climate panel as she seeks to meet the demands of bold action pushed by Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and youth climate advocates...

More than half a dozen lawmakers and aides say Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), currently a senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, is being considered to lead the select committee. No final decision is imminent, the sources say...

Castor didn’t deny her interest in serving on it Tuesday morning...

“Everyone in the caucus is interested in tackling the climate crisis,” Castor said, adding the committee could supplement existing efforts...

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A Long History of Green New Deals

Beginnings of the Green New Deal

The idea of a large-scale public investment in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions is not new. For example, as far back as 2003 the nonprofit Apollo Alliance sought to make a 'blue-green alliance' between environmental and labor groups for a “a new Apollo project” to undertake a $300bn, 10-year effort to accelerate the transition to clean energy.

The term “green new deal” has been used by many different groups over the years. New 'eco-nomics' proposals are fast gaining popularity.

Larry Elliott, Economics Editor of the Guardian, Colin Hines, Co-Director of Finance for the Future, former head of Greenpeace International’s Economics Unit, Tony Juniper, former Director of Friends of the Earth, Jeremy Leggett, founder and Chairman of Solarcentury and SolarAid, Caroline Lucas, Green Party MEP, Richard Murphy, Co-Director of Finance for the Future and Director, Tax Research LLP, Ann Pettifor, former head of the Jubilee 2000 debt relief campaign, Campaign Director of Operation Noah, Charles Secrett, Advisor on Sustainable Development, former Director of Friends of the Earth, Andrew Simms, Policy Director, nef (the new economics foundation).

In 2009, the United Nations drafted a report calling for a Global Green New Deal to focus government stimulus on renewable energy projects.

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Green New Deal details differ by proposal, but the common theme is a large-scale investment of public resources for rapid decarbonisation, modeled after the emergency measures taken in the 1930s by US president Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression.

In 2008 Barack Obama added a Green New Deal to his presidential campaign platform.

When President Obama took office in January 2009, he inherited what many called the weakest American economy since the Great Depression. Facing the challenge, he made energy the centerpiece of his economic recovery plan. President Obama launched what was called a “Green New Deal.”

In 2009, President Obama introduced a multi-billion climate change spending bill and succeeded in passing the bill through the House and Senate within the first month of his presidency.

According to journalist Michael Grunwald, the environmental portion of the $800 billion package “jump-started America’s gradual transition to a low-carbon economy.”

Grunwald, author of a book on the stimulus package, "The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era" (published Aug. 2012), explained in Grist magazine that the climate-change portion of the bill was “ginormous.”

President Obama signed a prototype Green New Deal into law in February 2009, allocating an unprecedented $90 billion into clean electricity, renewable fuels, advanced batteries, energy efficiency, a smarter grid and multiple other green initiatives.

In 2018, the U.S. think tank Data for Progress published a detailed policy report on what such a program might entail, including a commitment to 100% clean electricity by 2035 and net-zero emissions from all U.S. energy consumption by 2050.

The Green New Deal Group, initiated in 2007, launched their landmark report on 21 July, 2008 calling for a "Green New Deal". The group consisted of two former directors of Friends of the Earth, the Guardian's economics editor, Larry Elliott, the Green Party MEP Caroline Lucas and Andrew Simms of the New Economics Foundation...

“We are the true patriots on this,” said (Thomas) Friedman. “We’re talking about American economic power, American moral power, American geopolitical power. Green is geostrategic, geoeconomic, patriotic, capitalistic.”

But then there’s Richard Murphy, a British tax scholar who also claims to have coined the phrase “Green New Deal” around the same time as Friedman. “I don’t even know who Tom Friedman is. If he used the term, it’s complete coincidence.”

In 2007, Murphy, a political economy professor and founder of the London-based Tax Justice Network, started meeting with a cadre of newspaper editors, economists, and environmentalists to discuss the coming financial crisis and how any fiscal stimulus issued in response could be used to tackle the ecological crisis already underway.

This “two-birds-one-stone” approach proposed an aggressive spending plan that called for investing public funds in renewable energy, building a zero-emission transportation infrastructure, insulating homes to conserve energy, and establishing training programs to educate a national corps of workers to carry out the jobs...

(A) The Plan for a Green New Deal (and the draft legislation) shall be developed in order to achieve the following goals, in each case in no longer than 10 years from the start of execution of the Plan:

(1) 100% of national power generation from renewable sources;

(2) Building a national, energy-efficient, “smart” grid;

(3) Upgrading every residential and industrial building for state-of-the-art energy efficiency, comfort and safety;

(4) Decarbonizing the manufacturing, agricultural and other industries;

(5) Decarbonizing, repairing and improving transportation and other infrastructure;

(6) Funding massive investment in the drawdown and capture of greenhouse gases;

(7) Making “green” technology, industry, expertise, products and services a major export of the United States, with the aim of becoming the undisputed international leader in helping other countries transition to completely carbon neutral economies and bringing about a global Green New Deal.

(B) The Plan for a Green New Deal (and the draft legislation) shall recognize that a national, industrial, economic mobilization of this scope and scale is a historic opportunity to virtually eliminate poverty in the United States and to make prosperity, wealth and economic security available to everyone participating in the transformation. In furtherance of the foregoing, the Plan (and the draft legislation) shall:

(i)provide all members of our society, across all regions and all communities, the opportunity, training and education to be a full and equal participant in the transition, including through a job guarantee program to assure every person who wants one, a living wage job;

(ii) take into account and be responsive to the historical and present-day experiences of low-income communities, communities of color, indigenous communities, rural and urban communities and the front-line communities most affected by climate change, pollution and other environmental harm;

(iii)mitigate deeply entrenched racial, regional and gender-based inequalities in income and wealth (including, without limitation, ensuring that federal and other investment will be equitably distributed to historically impoverished, low income, deindustrialized or other marginalized communities);

(iv) include additional measures such as basic income programs, universal health care programs and any others as the select committee may deem appropriate to promote economic security, labor market flexibility and entrepreneurism; and

(v) deeply involve national and local labor unions to take a leadership role in the process of job training and worker deployment.

(C) The Plan for a Green New Deal (and the draft legislation) shall recognize that innovative public and other financing structures are a crucial component in achieving and furthering the goals and guidelines relating to social, economic, racial, regional and gender-based justice and equality and cooperative and public ownership set forth in paragraphs (2)(A)(i) and (6)(B). The Plan (and the draft legislation) shall, accordingly, ensure that the majority of financing of the Plan shall be accomplished by the federal government, using a combination of the Federal Reserve, a new public bank or system of regional and specialized public banks, public venture funds and such other vehicles or structures that the select committee deems appropriate, in order to ensure that interest and other investment returns generated from public investments made in connection with the Plan will be returned to the treasury, reduce taxpayer burden and allow for more investment.

The rise of Democrats who support policy that might actually make a difference on climate pollution / 11/07/2018

Supporters of a Green New Deal are gaining power in the very election that’s bleeding the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus. The 90-member club ― derided as “peacocks” by critics who say it served only to launder the reputations of members who consistently vote against climate policies ― lost several members...

"This is the sort of bold and audacious thinking that we need when it comes to confronting the ever-pressing challenge of averting catastrophic climate change." -- Michael Mann, climate scientist at Penn State University

With the federal government AWOL on climate change, another state steps up.

With President Donald Trump’s administration dismantling federal climate policy as fast as it can, all eyes have turned to the states. As last month’s Global Climate Action Summit in California illustrated, state leaders are stepping forward with big promises and inspirational rhetoric, attempting to rally the domestic troops, build some momentum, and signal to the world that the US isn’t a lost cause.

1631 is a fee. That’s not just semantics — in Washington, it matters. A tax goes into general revenue (even if it is offset by tax cuts). All the revenue from a fee must be devoted to the purpose of the fee.

Of the 1631 revenue:

70 percent would go to “clean air and clean energy.” 15 percent of that would go specifically to easing the burden on low-income energy consumers. $12 million would go to a fund that helps ease fossil fuel workers transition out of the industry.

25 percent would go to “clean water and healthy forests,” increasing the resilience of the state’s natural ecosystems to climate change.

Re: the initiative's fees ... beginning with a carbon tax, estimated to raise an average of about $900 million per year even starting with a low-end tax rate of $15 per ton of carbon.

An analysis by economist Robert Pollin and colleagues at the Political Economy Research Institute concluded that “clean energy investments in Washington State that would be sufficient to put the state on a true climate stabilization trajectory will generate about 40,000 jobs per year within the state.”

The result of I-1631 would be a rolling wave of investments across the state, to the tune of around a billion dollars a year, for decades to come. Here is I-1631 map showing the types of local investments that could be funded by carbon revenue:

Today, our economy is creating less of the jobs we need to keep our country standing strong, and more of the greenhouse gases that will bring our planet to its knees. In California, we've been working on policies that cut emissions, boost renewable energy production, and – most importantly – create stable, high-paying jobs with meaning. We can get the U.S. on the right track, too, but we won’t get there by keeping coal companies on life support, gutting the EPA, and leaving communities of color the doctor’s bills that fossil fuel production always brings. And we can’t get there on the freeways we built in the 1950’s.

That’s why I’m calling for a Green New Deal. We need a comprehensive plan to restore the infrastructure that brings our country together, and to do it sustainably, in a way that totally caps carbon emissions and sets our nation on track to consume only renewable energy by 2045. Doing so will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and foreign countries, shore up our national security, and we know it will create jobs: today, California’s clean energy sector supports ten times the jobs that the entire nation’s coal industry does. A Green New Deal will make our country safer and more self-sufficient, and it will create jobs that cannot be outsourced.

I wrote SB 350, the law that requires fifty percent of the Golden State’s energy consumption must be renewable by 2030, and I stared down Big Oil to get it passed. Today, the landmark renewable energy commitments that I shepherded to safe passage have pushed California to meet that goal years in advance and created thousands of green jobs for hardworking Californians. Now, we're in the home stretch of passing a bill to commit California to 100% renewables by 2045. Those accomplishments, and the $5.4 billion we’ll invest in new infrastructure this decade are proof positive that environmental stewardship and astounding economic growth go hand in hand. We can build an economy that provides a fair shot at the dignity of a good-paying job for every working family, in a way ensures a cleaner, greener future for the next generation.

A Green New Deal can be more than a pie-in-the-sky ideal. With the right Congress, we can write it into reality.

I learned during a couple of experiences in my life a kind of an answer to the complicated question of where ideas come from. In this movement we’re prone to think ideas come from scientists, and that is correct up to a point. I’ve always thought that ideas came from listening. A lot of people listening to each other is what we’ve been doing today, and it’s not easy to immediately synthesize what you’ve heard, be- cause the listening is a process. We have to be open-minded and remember to not tell people your story unless you’re willing to hear theirs. From an organizer’s viewpoint, you’re always trying to detect: What are people feeling, thinking? What words do they use?

From Roosevelt's New Deal to a Green New Deal

There are people who argue that there’s no climate problem. There are people who are fascistic in their inclinations. There are people who, unfortunately, are ideologically driven – they believe in a market even though there really is no pure market, it’s all government supported through incentives or taxes or mandates....

I come from experience, not ideology, not theory. I do my reading. I try my best. But my sense is the most we’re going to accomplish here is a global Green New Deal, which is quite a lot when you think of the state of the planet. We need the green billionaires and we need the younger generation...

If you read Thoreau’s book of essays that was published after his life, 'The Dispersion of Seeds', it’s about the growth of communities and the rise of new generations. At one point, Thoreau says, and I’m quoting: “We find ourselves in a world that is already planted, but is also being planted as at first.” That’s the transition we’re in... The title of Thoreau’s essay was 'I Have Faith in a Seed'. So do I.